Real Vampires Don't Sparkle
by jones2000
Summary: Book the Third in the Suck This trilogy. Ella, Eddie and DB are in Seattle for a working holiday, and life has finally settled down. Enter DB’s new best friend Nessie Cullen and her alarmingly perfect parents. Cue bitchiness and excessive whinging.
1. Introduction, SMeyer Style

**AN: Woo! SMeyer story format! I make no apologies for the length of this chapter!**

Sequel to Suck This and Breaking Down. Ella and Eddie absolutely _had _to meet Bella and Edward at some point, so here we are.

What will the gruesome twosome think of the impeccably groomed Cullens? And how will Bella and Edward react to their less-than-perfect counterparts?

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* * *

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_It's amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.__  
__**-**__**Quincy Jones**_

**PREFACE**

"I _told _you this was a bad idea,"

And those few words pretty much summed up my whole life thus far.

We stood before the madman, our hands in the air as the nozzle of the gun wavered uncertainly. His eyes were popping out of his head as he struggled to bring the weapon to bear on us. I was acutely aware of the trickle of blood running down Eddie's face, and my stomach still hadn't healed completely from where that mutant creature they'd bred had tried to gut me with its bare hands.

I hoped the other two had enough intelligence between them to get the others out before everything went to crap.

I must be cursed.

That's the only way my luck could be this bad.

...

..

.

..

...


	2. New Edward, Old Edward

Every girl wants to be a vampire these days. They fanaticise about it, about the invulnerability and the immortality and they're left reeling in the notion of having some brooding, emo, super-hot supernatural lover who is for some reason absolutely besotted with their insipidity, vapidity and downright narcissistic tendencies.

Me, my favourite fantasy is one where I'm still normal. Where I can just live my life, get a job, get a house and a dog, get married and maybe even have a couple of kids.

I wonder whether I'll ever actually get to the point where I'll actually _enjoy _the chance to live forever.

Hi. I'm Ella Swain, vampire.

In the last two years, I've staked my psychotic sire and saved the Fawkes vampires from extermination.

My dad turned out to be a vamp sympathiser with connections in the local werewolf tribe.

My boyfriend's parents were murdered by vampires when he was a kid, and not long ago, he _also_ died. I had to use my blood to heal him, turning him into some vamp-human mix, meaning that he could go crazy at any time and start killing people.

My adopted daughter is the orphaned hybrid demon offspring of my boyfriend's ex.

My best friend Jack is some sort of shape-shifting mutant who seems to repel any sort of clothing.

Oh yeah, and we also had a hit taken out on us by the Italian Vampire Mafia.

Between me, Eddie, and DB, we easily had enough baggage to fill several Olympic-sized pools.

Normally the three of us alternate our time between our home in Volterra, Italy, and our family in Fawkes, Australia, but this story started when we decided it was time for a family holiday. None of us could settle on a destination. Eddie was biased toward any location that had a high percentage of ghosts. DB picked places that were known for their funparks, and I rather liked the thought of an arty destination.

In the end, we ended up picking names out of a hat.

So our completely random destination turned out to be Seattle, Washington.

After a long flight, I opened my laptop in the hotel room and read some traveller reviews.

_Sorrento Hotel._

_Very elegant and possibly haunted._

Oh, goodie.

Laid out flat on the bed, Eddie had his nose in a book, plugged into his MP3 player and dead to the world around him. I wished I had his ability to shut everything out.

"Can we go see the Space Needle?" DB suddenly remarked excitedly. I looked up from unpacking, startled.

"What?"

"Can we go see the Space Needle?" DB repeated.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "'Cause."

I raised my eyebrows, but didn't ask anything else. DB was at the stage that she would just answer with a 'because', 'whatever', or 'why?' "We'll see." I replied. "Let's get settled in first, okay?"

DB sagged back down into her chair. "Okay." She sighed. I looked at her a moment longer, but she refused to meet my eyes. I placed my dark glasses, which had been hiding my strangely-coloured eyes on the plane, on the nightstand and prodded Eddie back to this world as DB hauled her bags into the adjoining single room.

In my black jeans and leather jacket, I knew that other people on the flight must have been looking at this badass gal nervously and wondering what the hell she was planning. In fact, when we first boarded, I even heard the steward ask the more-professional-looking Eddie whether he was my parole officer.

Eddie had just laughed dryly and said that sometimes it felt like it.

I wasn't feeling particularly receptive to the Sorrento ghosts that night as Eddie finally fell asleep lying on his stomach, head under his pillow and a hand dragging lightly along the carpet. I smiled helplessly. Right then, he didn't look like an action hero, romantic lead or sex god. He was just a normal guy, and I somehow found that sexier than any of the masks he wore.

Suppressing a sigh, I quietly slipped out of bed and walked over to the massive window and stared out at the skyline that was so different to what I was used to. It _was_ lovely.

But for some reason the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling uncomfortably.

I rubbed the back of my neck, but still the unpleasant feeling continued. Unconsciously, I knew what I was feeling, but I also didn't want to admit it to myself.

We were being watched.

I gave a small shrug and yanked the curtains closed. Maybe just the talk of ghosts had gotten me feeling edgy.

Next morning, the two of us took DB to see the Space Needle. All the way there, we encountered the typical obnoxious tourists and the snobbish, pseudo-cultured gallery-dwelling folk that I generally tried to avoid.

DB didn't seem to mind the traffic.

"Come on!" She demanded, racing ahead of us. Somehow, to me, this was seeming less and less about seeing the sights of Seattle. DB hung over the railing of the observation deck, flicking her head this way and that as though she was looking for something. More than once she became so preoccupied in what she was doing that either me or Eddie had to make a mad scramble to grab the back of her jacket before she would have squirmed between the safety railings.

Both of us were given more than a few disapproving looks.

Once I was certain she was back from the edge and listening intently to the tour guide, I walked over to Eddie and lent my head forward against his shoulder. I could feel a sigh rumble through his chest.

"I suppose it's a nice view." He said absently. I could tell by his tone that only part of him was actually up the Needle with us. The other part of him was busy trying to figure something out.

"I suppose."

He seemed to snap back to reality then, and his eyes immediately focused. "Where's DB?" He asked sharply.

"She's over with the-" I turned back toward the tour group. "-guide."

No DB.

Eddie swore, and the two of us split up, combing through the tourists, sightseers and suchlike.

I had just asked the teacher in charge of a group of unruly schoolkids on a field trip if he'd seen my little girl when I heard a familiar little laugh. I thanked the man for his time and slowly walked toward the observation deck.

DB was there, taking turns to look through the viewer with another young girl. They were both laughing and seemed to be having a good old time. My eyes narrowed and I cocked my head to the side slightly.

Neither of them had spotted me yet. The other girl could not have been that much older than DB, but was definitely taller. She had long curly reddish hair that fell loose to her waist, and she was wearing a pretty little blue dress with trainers. It contrasted sharply against DB's short, dark hair, jeans and t-shirt. The girls tired of looking through the viewer, and decided that while no one was looking, they were going to swing off it and jump off the low platform.

I did a quick look either side of me, wondering where the other girl's parents were, but when I looked back to the girls, I noticed something even more perturbing.

The girls were talking _through their hands._

I cleared my throat, careful not to startle them and make one of them fall. DB's head shot up, and she beamed at me.

"Ella!" She shrieked, and flung herself at me. Her little shoulders were quivering with excitement, and I wondered if she had found what she had been looking for. The other girl pranced up behind her, her hands gracefully clasped behind her back. She smiled at me politely. "Hello." She said formally.

"Hi, there. I'm Ella." I replied. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"I'm _Ruh-nez-may_." She said, sounding out the name for me and then pulling a little face like she was apologising for the absurdity.

"Renesmee?"

She nodded, smiling. Renesmee really was a beautiful child, the sun to DB's moon. "Very pleased to meet you." She said cheerfully, and I'm not ashamed to say I did a double-take. People simply didn't talk like that anymore.

"Nice to meet you too, Renesmee." I said gravely, bending down to shake her small hand. As I straightened, I heard Eddie's footsteps come up behind me.

"Dorothy Beatrice Collins." He exclaimed. DB hung her head. Any child will tell you that they only have a full name to know when they're in trouble. "We talked about disappearing like this."

"But I was right here with Nessie." DB protested. "It's not _my _fault that you couldn't see me."

Eddie's eyes slid off her and onto the girl beside her. He glanced at me.

"This is..." I hesitated a little. "Renesmee."

Eddie's stern reply was one I expected. "Where are your parents?"

The question seemed to catch Renesmee off-guard. I got the impression that this was a little girl who was used to doing things for herself. I remembered last year when DB really wanted to go see the Roman Colosseum, and Eddie said no. So she'd empted her piggy-bank and got on a bus to Rome.

I wondered whether Renesmee's parents were somewhere below us, frantically tearing apart Seattle to try and find her.

"They're around." She said evasively. "They're probably still at the hotel." Eddie sighed, seeming to instantly age ten years.

"We better get you back to your parents." He said. Both girls seemed to brighten instantly at the prospect of spending a little more time together, and as Eddie and I spoke to various Space Needle staff, the two of them kept their heads together.

Finally, we reached the ground floor of the complex. I couldn't help thinking about what type of parent would just let their child wander about a big city like this. DB and Renesmee were walking ahead of us slightly, hand in hand, when a woman's voice called out.

"_Renesmee_!"

The woman darted across the street, unbelievably quick. Smiling in relief, she easily lifted Renesmee into the air. Some distance behind her, taking his time to get out of the Volvo, was a man. Both of them were wrapped up in long coats and were wearing wrap-around dark glasses.

"Now, we talked about disappearing like this." The woman said sternly, righting the little girl on her feet.

"I was with my new friend DB." Renesmee stated. DB gave an awkward little smile.

"I told you she would be alright." The man's voice was shockingly smooth and velvety. The woman bristled at his apparent nonchalance about their daughter's whereabouts.

"DB's parents were going to take me back to the hotel, Momma." Renesmee said, holding her mother's hands. Letting go of her daughter, Renesmee's mother reached up and removed her glasses to she could see me and Eddie better. I felt Eddie go rigid beside me.

The woman's eyes were a strange tawny colour that I recognised instantly.

_Vampires._

Neither my Eddie nor the woman's husband moved. I stepped forward, offering my hand. "Hi. I'm Ella Swain. This is my... partner, Eddie Collins."

Eddie nodded and smiled politely, content at the moment to let me do the talking.

The woman's expression was blank for a minute, before a massive smile crept onto her face, lighting up her pale, perfect features. Her eyes were warm as she reached forward to clasp my hand. "I'm... Bella. Bella Cullen."

"This is my husband-" There seemed to be a strange little catch in her voice as she said the word. "Edward Cullen. You met our daughter."

"She's very polite," I offered, trying not to laugh at the name coincidences. I knew that nothing was going to appeal to a mother more than complementing her child.

"Thank you for looking after her," Bella gushed. "There must be something we can do to make it up to you..."

"No trouble." I shrugged. "This one here likes to wander off as well." I leant my hands on DB's head and she giggled, leaning back against my jeans-clad legs.

"Momma..." Renesmee pulled at her mother's skirt.

"Let us at least buy you dinner." Bella implored. DB beamed up at me, begging with her eyes.

I exchanged a look with Eddie, who shrugged. "Who am I to refuse a meal?" He joked lamely, but Bella seemed delighted with his attempt at injecting some humour into the situation.

Bella and Edward took us to a restaurant that seemed to be Renesmee's favourite, judging by the way she talked about the food the whole trip. Us adults talked about ordinary, banal things, and I couldn't help but notice that all of us became deliberately vague when it came to the typical questions about what we did for work, where we lived, and the suchlike.

The Cullens shed their outer clothing once they were inside the restaurant. And both Eddie and I stopped in the doorway, our jaws dropping in almost synchronisation.

My _god_, they were gorgeous!

I could see now that without her heels, I would have been taller than Bella. Long, chestnut locks cascaded over her pale shoulders, and her body went in an out in _all _the right places. Eddie reddened, and I saw him discreetly glancing between the two of us. I _hoped _that he was just cataloguing our differences, instead of weighing up _other, _slightly more perverted, things.

The _other _Edward was fabulous in his own right. I wasn't sure about Eddie, but I knew that a few dirty pictures popped into _my _mind as I looked at Edward Cullen. He was perfection, like a Grecian statue carved from marble.

It was only later that I realised that the man had roughly the personality of a piece of rock, too.

DB and Renesmee sat together, eating food off each other's plates and whispering quietly. I wondered how it was possible for the two to become such fast friends in such a short time. Bella, in contrast, seemed impossibly happy that Renesmee had made a friend of roughly the same age.

As the night progressed, I couldn't help but notice certain things.

Only Eddie, myself, and the girls ate, and that made me curious. Edward didn't speak much, but when he did, he seemed to anticipate exactly what I was thinking, while looking at Eddie, with an almost frustrated look on his face. After a moment, I realised what was happening. So the next time Edward reached out to read my mind, I reached into his.

_You know, you're not being very polite,_ I said sternly, and Edward scooted back in his chair, eyes widening slightly. I gave my best vampire smile across the table, and the smoky tendrils of the vampire's ability shrank back across the table.

Eddie and Bella had no idea of the mental acrobatics Edward and I were doing. Rather, the two of them were deep in conversation about a mutual favourite band that was playing in Seattle. They seemed to be getting on _very _well.

Soon, however, my jealousy turned to concern as I realised that Bella Cullen was paying less and less attention to her husband and more and more to Eddie, laughing at his lame jokes and reaching forward to touch his hand, her eyes firmly on his face as though she was captivated by his expressions and little facial quirks.

_Oh, dear._


	3. Definition of a Vampire

While I'm normally into the strong, silent type, the more I saw, the more I wondered what the hell was eating Edward Cullen. He swirled his drink moodily, scowling into the depths of his glass, like he'd much rather sweep Bella and Renesmee off to his lair so he didn't have to listen to any more inane babble, and go back to composing classical music, or whatever the hell he did.

Bella, on the other hand, was saying enough for the pair of them. Now that she knew that her daughter was safe, the woman became impossibly manic, like a cheerleader on crack. By the time Eddie and I stood up to say goodnight, I was on the verge of slapping her across the face to try and get a genuine reaction from her, not just unrestrained perkiness.

DB sulked as Eddie told her to get her coat, and Renesmee perked up immediately. "That's alright." She assured her new friend. "You can come and visit us in Forks." She stated matter-of-factly.

"_Forks_?" Eddie and I said at once. I was beginning to feel that the universe was playing one huge, practical joke on us.

"You're welcome anytime, Dorothy." Bella said warmly, and I bristled. If I had called DB by anything other than her nickname, she simply wouldn't have answered me.

"Don't you think that's up to her parents to decide?" Edward rumbled, the disapproving look still on his face. Both DB and Renesmee turned their angelic faces up to me and Eddie, and I could pinpoint the _exact _moment Eddie's iron resolve crumbled.

"How far is Forks?" He asked Bella and Edward dubiously.

"That way." Bella pointed down the road. "Follow the signs. It should be, um, about a three hour drive."

Eddie almost literally wilted at the thought of taking a hire car on the road for three hours and then turning around and driving _back _for three hours.

"Momma," Renesmee said excitedly, having just been struck by an idea. "Momma, they can stay with _us_."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Edward echoed Eddie's reservations, but Renesmee stared at him with her big brown eyes and he too was putty in his daughter's hands.

"We'll pick you up in the morning, then." Bella said cheerfully.

The taxi ride back to the hotel was pretty uneventful. DB was impossibly excited at the thought of going to Forks and spending more time with Renesmee. Not for the first time, I wondered what the little girl sensed. Of all of us, DB was the only one that really dwelt in the world of magic.

"She was _so _flirting with you." I threw a pillow lightly at the back of Eddie's head after DB went to sleep, after frantically packing her things so she could wake us both up at first light the next morning.

Eddie gave a derisive snort. "She was not."

I put on a poor imitation of Bella's light, feathery voice. "_Oh, Eddie, you're _so_ funny, I don't think I've laughed this much in ages. You know, you are _so _right about the quality of American beef. You're _so _interesting._" I laughed at the look on his face. "You are _completely _thick!"

"She's married." Eddie said, as if that ended the argument.

"So?" I countered. "That doesn't mean much anymore. Come on, I _dare _you to say you weren't a little bit attracted."

"I'm not answering." He said tightly, folding a shirt before tossing it aside a second later. "No matter what I say, it'll be the wrong thing. No way."

"Ha!"

"_I wasn't a little bit attracted_." Eddie parroted back to me with a completely straight face.

"She was on the verge of going _Eddie, take me_!" I fell backwards across our bed, my arms reaching out to him, racked by the giggles. He was looking at me disapprovingly, a hand on his hip. "Oh my god, you're so _adorable _when you're clueless."

Eddie managed to maintain his stern expression for precisely another minute, before he grinned, raking a hand through his dark hair. "I guess her body _was _pretty great. But she _did _seem to be kind of void of a personality. In a Stepford Wives kind of way." He lay down on his side beside me, propping himself up on his elbow.

"I thought _I _was the only one that noticed," I commented idly as his hand ran down the side of my face, lightly tracing my lips.

"You don't notice as much as you like to think you do." He wound a few strands of hair around his fingers, and lifted my chin with a finger.

"Really?" I said challengingly. "What don't I notice?"

He brought my lips to his, and kissed me so softly that I hardly felt it. "Well, you don't seem to notice that you're the _only _one for me."

I smiled as his lips made their way down my neck. "You're only saying that because you're afraid I'll shatter your skull."

"That too. But it's the truth."

"What I've noticed is that there's something you're hiding from me." I said softly.

Eddie placed a finger against my lips and sat up, and pulled me up until we were kneeling in front of each other on the bed. "All right." He said.

"What?"

"When you...brought me back, I became half vampire."

"Didn't we already cover all that?"

He gave a small grin. "Only... I don't have super speed. Or super strength. I can't regenerate. I can still be injured, I scar, and I'm still ageing." He held my hands between both of his. His mother's opal necklace hung around my neck just above my cleavage, and he focused on it. Then he confirmed something that I already knew.

"I'm psychic. Not in the same way my sister is, but still."

"You can sense demons." I said. I knew that for a fact.

"Among other things." Eddie's brows lowered. I knew then that if this man ever became a vampire, he would be the best tracker the supernatural world had ever seen. "I can... _sense _things, Ella. It's not as precise as Alice's visions, but since I... died, it's gotten stronger."

"You can see the future?" I frowned.

"And the past." Eddie said solemnly. "I can look at a person's face and see who they were, and who they will be."

"What do you see when you look at me?" I asked in wonder.

He caressed my face. "I see someone who was hurt many times, and willed herself to become someone better than the people who came before." I grimaced as an unbidden image of my mother flitted through my mind.

"So what's in my future?"

"I said I don't see the future. But I'm hoping I'm in it."

"We'll see," I cupped his face in his hands and kissed him.

* * *

I was right. As soon as the first few fingers of cold morning light probed their way underneath the curtains, DB threw herself into the middle of our bed, jolting me and Eddie awake.

"Come on, wake up, it's time to go to Forks, and why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

The little girl sprang off the mattress and launched herself into the kitchenette, where she proceeded to noisily and messily make breakfast.

I smiled helplessly, my arms around my knees. Beside me, Eddie sighed and fell backwards into the pillows, a hand over his eyes.

Despite DB's driving enthusiasm, we didn't end up leaving until two hours later. While Eddie was sorting out the valet to bring our hire car around, I stood staring around the lobby, DB holding onto my hand.

"Well, I hope you're happy."

DB beamed up at me and squeezed my hand. Yes, she was very happy.

"I hope you know what you're doing, girl." I probably looked nuts, talking to myself like this. "Dare I ask why you're doing this, you little terrorist?"

DB's face grew serious, and I frowned.

"What do you mean, she's the same?"

And DB proceeded to slip me fragments of Renesmee's story. I saw her father, mother, vampire family, human family, werewolf family and more. I saw the Volturi come to hunt her down, like they had done with my DB.

_Same._

DB couldn't explain the connection or the coincidences, just that somehow, across the world from each other, two extraordinarily gifted girls had been born that were as alike as day and night. Like our two girls really were two halves of the one whole. The feeling of absolute connection almost overwhelmed me, deeper than anything between friends, family, or lovers.

Finally, DB wasn't one-of-a-kind anymore.

Eddie came back towards us, having a bit of a dad-bitch about the hotel staff. We were lugging our cases down the front steps when the valet approached us, holding a set of keys that _definitely _weren't for the hire car.

"Your keys, Mr Collins." He handed them to Eddie, who looked suspicious.

"Where's the hire car?"

"It was returned." The young man said nervously. "As per instructions. A dark-haired lady said that this would be a much better ride, courtesy of the family."

"What family?"

The valet rolled his eyes. "Dude, just take the damn keys. If the tips are the right colour, I don't need to know their life story."

Eddie's face folded into a snarl, and he snatched the keys.

"Which one's ours?" I asked as we looked out over the cars that various valets were bringing in. Eddie squinted at the badge on the end of the keychain.

"It's-"

"Oh my gosh." DB's eyes sparkled as she immediately matched the badge on the chain to the badge on the car. She pranced over to it, and tossed in her small backpack. "Come on!"

The red Ferrari Mondial there in the street, almost like it was looking at us. "Holy crap." Eddie breathed. A length of card had been placed beneath one of the wiper blades, and he pulled it off the windscreen. "_To Edward, Ella and Dorothy. We believe this might be of some use to you while in our country. We will meet you when you arrive." _He looked up at me. "How are they supposed to that?"

"There's probably only one way in and out of town." I shrugged. "Well, the Cullens might be mentally deficient, but they've got good taste."

It began to sprinkle a little as I found a classic rock station on the radio. I turned the volume right up and DB and I began an off-key sing along to Meatloaf's _Bat Out Of Hell._

"_Like a bat out of Hell, I'll be gone when the morning comes. When the night is over, like a bat out of Hell, I'll be gone, gone, gone,_"

The town of Forks had seen _nothing _like us.

"Welcome to Forks, Washington, ladies." Eddie shouted over the music as we flashed past the Forks welcome sign. I lifted my sunglasses and looked around. It seemed that no matter where I was, I would always end up in some little town that had just fallen off the edge of the map.

We pulled into a little shop, so we could get a bite to eat and DB could go to the loo. There was a small tourist section up one end, and in one of the displays I caught sight of my own reflection, and I wondered at the subtle differences between myself and the Cullens.

My face was pale and oddly symmetrical, yet with none of the marble-like or strangely-shimmering quality of the Cullens skin. I ran my tongue over my teeth, my canines stronger and sharper and slightly longer than the rest. The Cullens had no visible fangs.

Then for the first time since I was bitten, I ran up an index of the things that separated me from your traditional vampire.

No burning up in the sunlight, though I _did_ tend to feel much weaker at midday. I _did _have a reflection, even though it seemed strangely insubstantial and misty. I used to really like garlic, but had sort of lost my taste for it. I had been an atheist since I was fifteen, so I wasn't really bothered by a crucifix, and everywhere I had been I had either been invited or it was public area, so I couldn't really tell whether the threshold story was rubbish or not.

What was the deal here?

"Ella Swain?"

I spun, almost stumbling over my feet. Behind me was one of the most beautiful blonde women I had ever seen, staring at me with a haughty expression. "Yeah, I'm Ella Swain." I said. It was part statement and part question, and the woman winced at my accent.

"I am Rosalie Hale."

_No friggin' way._

"Hi." I said awkwardly. Noticing the blonde out of the corner of his eye, Eddie came over to me and placed a possessive hand in the small of my back. DB scampered across the floor toward us, a soda in one hand and a burger in the other.

She beamed up at the other Rosalie as Eddie's face settled into deep lines of suspicion. Rosalie seemed to have been rendered temporarily speechless as her gaze lingered on Eddie, hearing his heart, before switching back to me and then looking down at DB.

"She's your daughter?" Rosalie whispered, looking at me, a hopeful spark in her eyes.

"I'm adopted." DB said suddenly. I was grateful to my girl for stepping in. "My parents... died."

The disappointment in Rosalie Hale's face tore at your heart. For one brief, shining moment, she _really _hoped that DB was my biological child. After that moment, she turned back into the haughty woman she had been a few moments go.

"I've been sent to bring you to the house." She said stiffly, and then swept out the door to where there was a convertible waiting. There was a buffed, dark haired man waiting in the passenger's seat, and he waved at us cheerily as Eddie opened the door for me and DB.

I exchanged looks with my man. "Well, we're off to see the wizard."

The trip to the Cullen House was almost identical to my first trip to the Collins house, only in reverse. Instead of the landscape getting dustier and yellower as we drove further in, plants seemed to spring up all around us, swamping the car in a tide of green. Finally we reached a sprawling mansion in the clearing, all white and glass-walled.

"Wow."

"Are you sure about this?" I asked Eddie. "I'm willing to bet there's a nest of vampires in there."

He gave a tight smile. "Yeah. I can sense them."

I couldn't quite seem to articulate my worry properly. "Maybe we shouldn't. I mean, you're still mostly human."

"Yeah." Clearly he had already thought about all the things that could go wrong in this scenario. "But I have you to back me up, right?"

"Always," I gave a small smile.

"_DB_!"

Renesmee had found us. As Eddie helped DB out of the back, the two little girls ran to each other's arms like they hadn't seen each other for years. The man that had been riding with Rosalie ambled over to introduce himself.

"Emmett." He offered me his hand. "Nice to meet ya. Nessie hasn't stopped talking about your girl since they got home."

_Emmett._ I decided that I was going to stop being surprised by the coincidences.

"Ha. Well, sorry about that." I shook his hand, and my hand was swallowed up in his massive one. That was one thing I was grateful for. DB didn't really like to speak, and only did when she absolutely had to. "I'm Ella."

"And another Edward." Emmett raised an eyebrow as he shook Eddie's hand.

"Eddie will do." Eddie gave a pleasant smile. "Just to try and keep things as non-confusing as possible."

"If _you_ can keep everything around here as non-confusing as possible, you'll be doing a damn better job than the rest of us."

I decided I liked him.

"Come in."

The house belonged to Esme and Carlisle Cullen, and the two of them seemed impossibly pleased at our presence. Esme had outdone herself on mine and Eddie's bedroom, the massive bed draped with a tent of lacy netting and the covers a dark blue that contrasted heavily with the white that was prevalent throughout the rest of the house.

Curiously enough, the blue matched Eddie's eyes perfectly.

Opposite ours, DB seemed just as delighted with her room. Esme and her other adopted daughter Alice seemed to have taken a particular delight in picking out little things that would make my daughter's stay more pleasurable.

Upon first meeting Alice, the woman simply beamed at myself and Eddie before saying _finally._

Everything seemed surreal as we sat in the living room. The girls scrounged up two plates of meat and biscuits, and Renesmee offered hers to me. It was then that I realised that the other vampires in the room were staring intently at me, waiting to see what I would do. The scrutiny I was under made me feel nervous as I swallowed a roll of sandwich meat.

"So, Ella." Carlisle Cullen began casually. I looked up. "What coven do you belong to?"

I blinked.

"My what?"


	4. The Collector

**AN- Because I decided to work it out, Real Vampires takes place in 2010, two years after Breaking Down. And since SMeyer's Breaking Dawn was published in '08, theoretically it and Breaking Down happened at roughly the same time. This was **_**not**_** intentional, and the coincidence made me giggle.**

**FYI: Nessie is two. DB is six. **

* * *

The next day. Compared to how most of my other days started, this one was relatively normal.

"_She can't be a real vampire, can she?"_

"_I don't know how, but she's Talented."_

"_Are you sure, Edward?" _

"_I am."_

"_I believe she is what she says she is."_

"_How do you mean, Carlisle?"_

"_When I was young, before I came here, I fancied myself a bit of adventurer. I travelled extensively throughout Europe. It was in Moscow, however, where I made a fatal mistake. I stupidly revealed my identity to the wrong person, and I'm afraid I incited something of a raving mob."_

"_Why, Carlisle. I didn't think you had it in you."_

"_Luckily I encountered a fellow vampire called Mikael and his mate, Svetlana. They smuggled me away and the three of us fled to St Petersburg."_

"_What has this got to do with Ella Swain?"_

"_Mikael and Svetlana both had a second set of retractable teeth. Behind what Mikael called their 'social teeth'. And neither of them were venomous, though they did have some sort of glad that would secrete a mild sedative into their food's bloodstream to make feeding easier. The two of them were themselves extensive travellers, and had formed allegiances with many clans and nomads worldwide."_

"_So?"_

"_Mikael had come to the conclusion that depending on the global location of the coven, they would… evolve differently compared to other covens across the world."_

"_Evolve?"_

"_Perhaps 'mutated' is a better word. Over time, a particular vampire would grow to become resistant to certain daily threats and neutralize them in their genetic makeup. When that vampire... procreated, that mutation was passed down to the next in the bloodline. To me, it makes sense that Ella's bloodline would have become resistant to things that ours has not."_

"_She ate. Human food. And Bella and I saw her and her mate in the sunlight. Her skin looked... hard. Translucent. But it didn't…"_

"_They are Australian, Edward. I would strongly suspect that somewhere along the line, her ancestors adapted to the harsh conditions where the sun is dangerous even to humans, and animals for a vegetarian lifestyle are often scarce due to drought."_

I had to give Carlisle his due. He was smarter than I had originally thought.

"_Because of our wholly different global locations, there are bound to be things that our bloodline is resistant to that hers is not, and vice versa."_

Excuse me, Professor, if I don't test that.

Eddie came out of the bathroom, scrubbing at his hair with a towel. He saw me sitting cross-legged on the bed, my eyes unfocused, and threw the towel at me. I didn't break from the trance soon enough, and the wet towel wrapped around the back of my head.

Eddie grinned cheerily at me and I laughed. Something flickered in his blue eyes and his face turned serious.

"Anything important?" He asked.

I shrugged.

"They're talking about me. They think I'm a mutant."

"I meant anything important that I didn't know already."

"Ha!" I scrunched up the towel and threw it back at him. Then I dropped the punch line. "No, they're wondering why I don't sparkle." I said matter-of-factly. Eddie goggled at me.

"Sparkle?"

I tried to adequately describe the images I had seen in the Cullens' minds, the vampire standing in the sun, shimmering like their skin had been dusted with slivers of diamonds. How was I to explain something like that to a down-to-earth person like Eddie?

"Like they lost a fight with a glitter stick."

His face twisted in disgust as the mental image hit him.

"I know several people who would be mortally insulted by that very notion." Eddie raised an eyebrow, clearly thinking that I was kidding him. I smiled, thinking back to Inez and her clan in Australia. Would they have approved of this clan of - of -

The notion was ludicrous. If I wanted to watch a grown man sparkle, I could go to an Elton John concert.

"And they're wondering what the deal is with you, too." I crossed my hands behind my head, stretching my shoulders. "Rosalie thinks you're my pet."

"Woof." Eddie replied, fishing around in a suitcase for some pants.

"Edward thinks I'm waiting for the right moment to bite you. Because apparently that's what he and Bella decided to do. Isn't that _romantic_?"

He glanced at me over his shoulder. "You what? The girl _chose _to become a vampire?"

"Hey, you got me. Different strokes for different folks, I guess."

There was a polite knock on the door. Eddie quickly pulled on a shirt as I opened the door.

Bella was standing just beyond the threshold, her face once again a studied expression of casual indifference. Unlike the gaudy outfits from yesterday, this time she was in serviceable jeans, sneakers, and a tee.

"Hello." She said.

"Hi." It took a moment to realise that she was expecting me to invite her in. "Ah, would you like to come in?"

Bella smiled shyly at Eddie as she entered the room, and he flicked his dimples quickly at her while pulling on his boots. The other vampire woman looked curiously around the room, her eyes lingering on our clothes hung over the backs of chairs, mugs sitting on the shelves without coasters, and DB's toys strewn across the floor. She seemed surprised that the room looked like it had actually been _lived_ in, but then, all the other rooms in this mausoleum looked like they were in stasis, preserved for display purposes only.

"You've made yourself at home." If she disapproved, I couldn't pick up a trace of it in her voice.

"What can we do for you, Bella?"

She smiled warmly, and I could still see a small hint of who she must have been while human. "The girls are downstairs with Jacob." Before I could ask _who's Jacob_, she continued. "We – that is, myself, Edward, and Nessie, have to hunt today." I was in no doubt of what she meant as I noticed that her eyes were completely black.

She was hungry.

"Nessie wanted to know if you and DB would like to come with us."

"Hunting." I said. "And killing. And eating."

Don't get me wrong. I've had my own share of rabbits and chickens and the odd sheep in my day, but slaughtering cute woodland creatures somehow seemed… wrong. I glanced back at Eddie, who shrugged. I knew that while we were hunting, he was going to make himself scarce. He might have loved me, but if I _did _get overridden by bloodlust, he wanted to be as far away from me as possible.

"Okay, then." I said.

Standing beside DB on the Cullens front lawn, I was introduced to Jacob Black.

Jacob was the leader in one of the local tribes of shape shifters, and introduced himself quite cordially. Unlike his vampire counterparts, he seemed quite amused by the coincidences that gave us something in common with the Cullens, and was quick to christen my man as the 'Anti Edward' as he warmed up to Eddie's dry wit and biting humour.

I liked him, but when Emmett explained the complicated situation about him, Renesmee, Bella, and Edward in a very colourful and rambling way, I did start to look at him a bit weird. _Imprinting._ So, if Nessie ever chose to, she could spend the rest of forever with him. And if she chose _not _to, he would still always be there.

_Waiting_.

I'm not in the best position to pass judgement, but if he had been back home in _my _Fawkes, he'd have the _A Current Affair_ newscrew on his front step and a mob of angry parents burning his effigy in the street.

We assembled on the yard. I stood beside Jacob with DB holding my hand as we waited for the Cullens. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Alice talking animatedly to Eddie as they walked casually to the Ferrari. Jasper followed a few steps behind, an ever-present shadow. Eddie gave a minute wave as he spotted me looking, and the corner of my mouth twitched in a grin. DB waved excitedly at him, her face lit up like a candle.

Renesmee's face lit up when she saw the three of us waiting. Bella smiled, but Edward didn't look pleased in the slightest.

We trekked off into the woods. I'm guessing the local inhabitants knew what was happening, as every animal in the vicinity immediately fled from us. At first my girl's face was twisted into an expression of disgust and she dragged her feet slightly, but when Jacob patiently explained the hunt to her in terms of a game, she raced to catch up to Renesmee. I followed behind, taking care to watch how the Cullens moved, just in case…

Just in case.

DB was fast, easily outstripping the other vampires. Her small frame made it appear as though she was almost ricocheting through the trees. Suddenly there was a snap, and I saw that the thin branch she had been tentatively hanging from had broken under her slight weight.

But before I could really register her fall, DB righted herself in midair and dropped lightly down onto the speckled back of a retreating deer. Hanging on for dear life, she clapped her hands firmly over the startled creature's eyes, causing it to come to a careening stop.

As the deer stumbled and fell to its knees, DB leapt off its back and ran over to me, her expression distraught, as she knew what was coming next. We stayed back from the scene and DB buried her head in my jacket as Edward broke the creature's neck, the crack echoing around the clearing.

DB's distressed state kept me focused on her and not the raw, bloody feast not ten feet away from me. I could hear paws striking the ground as the massive Jacob-wolf padded over to see what was wrong. He gently head butted her in a friendly gesture.

"Sweetie, it's alright. Jacob said this was going to happen." I stroked back her black hair.

"I can't watch." She mumbled, clearly embarrassed.

"Is she alright?"

Bella had finished first and had taken a step back from the carcass, allowing her husband and child to get their fill. Her brow crinkled into a frown, and she walked over to us, running a hand through the hair on Jacob's back. Her black eyes were slowly creeping up the spectrum into a warm amber.

"Just a bit squeamish." I replied, and Bella gave a knowing smile, her eyes thoughtful.

"I can walk her back to the house, if you like." Despite the offer, I could tell by her lingering look that she'd rather stay here with Edward.

"You should finish eating."

Jacob gave a low growl, like an idling truck. He nudged his cold nose into the palm of my hand, and then licked DB's cheek.

"You don't have to." I said.

Jacob gave a low whine of affirmation, and I guessed that if not for Renesmee, he wouldn't be out here in the first place. My lips thinned. What sort of mother would I be if I left my daughter in the care of a werewolf?

"Honey, Jacob and I are going to walk you back to the house. Okay?"

We took another of the forest paths, and Jacob gallantly led the way, tramping down undergrowth that DB might have not been able to traverse. We were in for a hike, and it took him completely by surprise when I started to whistle. He swung his massive muzzle back to blink at me before he began to nasally hum along to the made-up tune.

Despite herself, my girl began to smile. I could see the house in the distance, and Jacob goaded DB into a race. I smiled at their childishness and looked up.

I was a fraction of a second too late to stop Jacob blundering through the trip wire.

With a startled yelp, the ground gave way beneath him, and for a moment the massive wolf seemed to hang suspended in the air before falling into the pit below, claws scrabbling uselessly at the steep sides. I should have prepared myself for an attack then, but it all happened so fast I wasn't thinking straight.

"Change back!" I crouched at the side of the pit, reaching down as far as I could. DB held on to my other arm. "Give me your hand!" Jacob shifted back into human form and reached up as far as he could.

Our fingertips grazed.

I strained as far as I was able, but the slippery forest floor meant that I could get no real traction to pull him up. I gnashed my teeth in frustration.

Then DB screamed.

Something grabbed my hair, wrenching my head back. Below me, Jacob's face twisted into an expression of startled disgust, before he changed back into the wolf, repeatedly charging at the walls of the pit to try and get enough leverage to catapult himself out.

Whoever had me dragged me back, and smashed my head down against the cold, hard ground. Something cracked, and I felt a shooting pain. With a wild cry, I wrenched my head from the iron grip and rolled onto my back. Coiling myself, I delivered a solid and painful kick between my attacker's legs before springing up to a crouch, snarling.

I gasped.

My attacker bellowed in anger, saliva dripping down from bared fangs. What clothes he had on were ripped beyond recognition, his frame completely emancipated.

His eyes were bulging, black and vacant.

"Go to Bella!" I shrieked at DB as the starving vampire launched himself at me again, tackling me to the ground. Claws ripped into my face and body and my world turned red with pain. I brought my knee up into his stomach, getting showered with his spit.

He yowled with anger and before I could do anything, he lunged down and buried his teeth into my neck.

Gasping in pain, I brought my arms back and drove my hands forward, popping the vampire's arms out of his sockets. As he stared at me in shock, I grabbed his head in my hands and broke his neck.

Rolling his body off me, I touched my chest and neck and held my hands in front of me. Dark, almost black blood dripped slowly through my fingers and I struggled to stand. I felt... weak. Something was coursing through my veins. I could _feel _it moving of its own accord, like it was a living organism. I tried to concentrate on regenerating myself, but my mind kept going elsewhere, like the last conversation with my alcohol-addled mother, the first time I met my father, curled up in Eddie's arms as he slept... My concentration was shot.

I fell to my knees as several people in dark military clothes came out from behind the trees and silently removed the body of the other vampire. I registered seeing several tranquiliser guns and I tried to make myself move as Jacob was shot once in the hind leg and three more times in the shoulders. He went down hard, and did not change back to human form. He didn't move.

Three more men came into the clearing, and I saw that the bulkiest one of them had DB's unconscious form slung over his shoulder. I tried to scream out to her, but my body wasn't obeying my mind.

"Take her to Professor Milton." This came from a short man with round glasses, and I fixed my blurry vision on him. "He'll be happy that we finally found another one for his... collection."

Someone nudged my foot. "What about this one?"

The short man peered at me over the rims of his glasses, and dismissed me with a glance. "Leave her. The venom will have killed her soon enough."


	5. Cue Incidental Music

**AN: In this chapter I've dropped a hint about what I've got in store for Eddie. Dun dun dun.**

* * *

I don't know how long I lay there in my blood, curled up in the foetal position. It felt like forever, but I knew it could have only been a few minutes. The vampire poison, the venom, was burning through me, and I knew.

I knew that as I was already a vampire, my body was slowly being destroyed.

There was only thing left I could do. Pulling in my last reserves of mental strength, I closed my eyes and reached out for Edward Cullen.

I felt Edward jerk as my presence lightly brushed his mind, and I could feel him beginning to think some particularly nasty words in response to my violation of his privacy, and then he realised with a start that I was barely hanging on to consciousness.

_What happened? _He thought to me.

_Attacked… men took… DB and Jacob…_

_Where are you?_ He demanded. I had no words, only pictures of the path we had taken. My brain was fogged, and I couldn't open my eyes.

_E… Eddie…_

I could feel that Edward was already moving. _Bella and Nessie are getting him and Carlisle now._

_Safe…?_ It was barely a whisper in the base of my skull, the fading thoughts of a dying woman. I could feel a pause as Edward reached out for the minds of the rest of his family.

_Everyone is safe,_ he confirmed, and somehow that made me feel slightly better.

It was strange, having someone else ride along in your head with you, especially someone you didn't really like, but every time I started to slip into oblivion Edward roughly jerked me back from the brink. When he sprung from the thicket, horrified at the intensity of the attack, my relief at seeing him surprised me.

I hate to admit it, but he probably saved my life.

It wasn't soon after that the undergrowth pulsed again, and Carlisle Cullen stepped out, and closely behind was my Eddie, the colour high in his cheeks, his body's endurance stretched to the max.

I was aware of other eyes emerging all around us. The rest of the Cullen family had arrived.

I drifted. I was somewhere else as these people I knew crowded around my broken body.

"I thought about moving her." Edward was saying to Carlisle. "But I was not sure whether that would do more damage to her or not." Beside me, Eddie knelt on one knee, almost as if proposing marriage.

"Hey, you." He said, his voice barely a whisper. "Look at the trouble you get into when I'm not here to keep an eye on things."

"That was probably best, Edward." Carlisle said, crouching down to examine me.

"What's happening to her?" Bella's eyes were wide and fearful.

"Vampire attack." Carlisle's eyes were dark with worry.

"Why isn't she, you know, regenerating?" She asked, obviously distressed.

"The venom is destroying her." Carlisle said sadly. "We are different families, and are poisonous to each other."

As one, every eye swung to the diminutive Alice Cullen. Her head was bowed, and I couldn't see her face. Clearly, she was searching for a solution somewhere in the future. She was silent.

"What do we _do_?" Bella demanded, more forceful than before. "Can't we, I don't know, _extract _it or something?"

"She needs fresh blood to flush the venom out of her system and enable regeneration."

Everyone turned once again to stare at Alice.

"I'll go get some." Emmett offered, squaring his shoulders, casting a look in the direction the herd of retreating deer had fled.

"No. The source needs to be… pure."

Eddie was the first to understand.

He nodded at her, his face pale.

"You might die," Alice warned. "Do not take this lightly."

"I wouldn't be here if I took this lightly." Eddie growled. Wordlessly, he pulled one of his gloves off and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt and jacket.

Carlisle motioned his family back among the trees as he remained crouched where he was. Eddie breathed in slowly and seemed to steel himself before pulling a knife from his jeans and slashing himself painfully, if shallowly, across the wrist.

The smell of his spicy _human _blood hit me with the same force that had broken my nose. My whole world was the red liquid welling up in the cut, and I hissed. It was an involuntary, primal reflex. In that one moment I wanted to jump up and _devour _him, suck him dry until there was only a withered husk left.

_You love him! _A little voice screamed in the back of my skull, trying to make itself heard over my vampire-mind. _And he loves you!_

But oh, his blood, so near, so _warm…_ Somehow I managed to bring my hands up and push his arm away. Eddie didn't budge, and gripped my shoulder firmly, pinning me in place.

"No. No!"

"Ella Swain, I am _not _going to lose you like this." He snarled.

"You must drink enough to flush the toxin out of your system or you will die." Carlisle said in a measured voice. "Edward's blood loss will be fine after a few days in bed."

I inhaled the smell of the blood, telling myself over and over that I would only take enough to begin to regenerate myself. My hands curled around Eddie's wrist and I sank my fangs into his flesh.

Suddenly I could hear everything around me so much clearer, like someone had pulled the wool out of my ears. My eyes snapped into focus, zooming in on all the small details I had somehow missed before, like the light dusting of freckles across Eddie's nose and how Bella had a nervous tic in the corner of her eye.

I spotted Eddie swoon slightly, and I managed to unhinge my jaw from around his arm.

I felt like my whole body was vibrating.

As I looked up at the sky, I could almost understand why there were some vampires that just could _not _do the whole human blood substitute thing. It was intoxicating. I had a particularly nice buzz going on.

And then I shut down.

I think I must have gone into a period of hibernation as my body was repairing itself, though I wouldn't say it was an _exact _sleep. I was acutely aware of everything that was going on around me, though I could not interact with the world around me.

"_I bet _she _led them there."_ A new female voice said, her words laced with hostility. "_Set Jake up for a fall."_

"_For what reason?" _A male voice I also didn't recognise admonished her.

"_And then attacked and poisoned _herself_?" _A younger boy asked incredulously.

"_We have no grudges against her and her paramour. They didn't even know we existed until a few weeks ago."_

"_Says the Cullens." _The woman said fiercely.

Then one day my eyes snapped open, and I simply sat up.

The room I was in was small and painted an off-green colour that was peeling in places. I hopped out of bed and stretched. My muscles felt like they hadn't moved in a week, and for all I knew, they hadn't. Apart from that, I felt great. Better than great. Give me a marathon right here and now, and I'd run it.

My laugh died in my throat when I remembered _why _I had so much energy. Eddie! I had to go see if he was all right.

My hand was on the door when I realised that to get to my wounds, someone had removed my ruined clothing, stripping me down to my underwear. That was when I looked down and saw the strange scar across my stomach that caught the light and seemed to glitter slightly. I touched the scar tentatively. The skin and flesh where the vampire had attacked me was _hard._

There was a small mirror hanging on the wall above the bed, and I knelt on the pillows to get a look at my face.

A hard shiny scar ran from the nape of my neck to my shoulder where the vampire had buried its teeth and ripped off a slab of my skin.

I was marked.

"Oh." I said. _Well, there go all my small tops and low rider jeans._

I turned just as the door opened.

"Hi." I said awkwardly.

Eddie stared at me for a long moment. He could have used a coffee and a shave. In three long strides he was across the room and I was in his embrace. My arms went up around his back and I pressed my face into his shoulder.

"You don't look too good." He murmured against my ear.

I laughed wryly. "Right back at you, gorgeous." His wrist had already scabbed over, a straight slash punctured with a semicircle of teeth. My teeth. "I need to see the others." I said quietly.

"Of course." Eddie stepped back and reached for the door.

"Babe?" He looked back at me, and I gestured to my black underwear.

"Oh! Right." He shrugged out of the blue button-down shirt he was wearing and handed it to me.

There was an older man in a wheelchair and a pretty woman with a scarred face in the next room, both of them talking quietly. They looked up cautiously as I followed Eddie out of the room, hunkering down into his shirt.

The man wheeled around to look at me directly, and his old face was creased into lines of suspicion and curiosity. "You're awake." It was less of a question, and more of a statement of fact.

Silence.

"Looks like it." I said.

Silence.

"Billy Black." He nodded briskly. "That's Emily Young."

"I'm Ella Swain."

"We know."

Another uncomfortable pause.

"Where am I?" I asked quietly.

"You are in La Push, on the Quileute reservation."

"Oh." That surprised me. "I thought vampires weren't supposed to be on your lands."

Billy gave me a long, searching look. "Only the Cullens aren't welcome here. You and your man... intrigue us." He gave Eddie a long look, like he was trying to figure something out.

"I suppose I can live with that." I replied. "I don't suppose you have any clothes I could borrow?"

"What do you plan to do?"

"Find Jacob. Find my daughter." I said firmly. "Whoever they were, those men, they were waiting for us. Which means they had been watching us for some time."

Billy nodded slowly. "That is why you are here. Unlike the Cullens, the Quileute do not underestimate the power and ingenuity of ordinary humans."

It amazed me at how easily Eddie had come to fit in among the Quileute tribe. I knew some of the pack members, and Billy Black in particular, were curious about why he was able to easily spot clues among the wild undergrowth and decaying leaves, as he was just another 'ordinary human' to them.

Both of us knew it was only a matter of time before all the time Eddie spent discreetly phoning old contacts and the frighteningly calm way he searched for information from shady strangers would need to be explained. Leah Clearwater was already wondering out loud why he carried a knife with him at all times.

How were we supposed to explain that Eddie was a hunter?

He wasn't relishing the idea of informing our new allies of that particular fact.

"The Cullens will meet us at the handover point." Seth Clearwater said. He was walking beside us while his older sister Leah preferred her wolf form while there was a possibility of danger. "Maybe we can find something else."

I pursed my lips. Eddie had already filled me in about how he had found the mangled remains of trip wires, and a lone bootprint in the mud that was a standard tread favoured by the US police force. He was also the first to locate tracks in the mud where something heavy had been dragged away. The marks had vanished abruptly, and he had surmised that Jacob had been loaded onto a helicopter or plane of some sort.

Sam Uley had nodded, approving of the logic, and had commented that Eddie would have made a good Alpha.

Myself, I could _not _understand how nobody had seen or noticed anything wrong around town. _Someone _would have been bound to notice if the forest had suddenly become crawling with military men and choppers. Wouldn't they?

"Anything?" Eddie asked Leah.

Leah slowly shook her massive muzzle and let out a low whine. I knew what she would have said. It was the same thing she had been saying for days. _Jacob would have made contact before now. Something's wrong. Maybe he's been drugged, or something worse. _

"Jake'll be alright!" Snapped Seth, anticipating her words.

"Shh!" Eddie made a sharp gesture, and the four of us sank to the ground. It amazed me that he could pick up the disturbances, as I would have missed them if he didn't say anything.

He gestured to me, and I frowned. Carefully, I reached out and my awareness grazed their minds. "It's okay." I stood.

The Cullens had come further on to Quileute land than was originally intended. I saw Leah's shaggy face tighten as if she was preparing to tell them all off, and then I realised what was going on.

"Look!"

Emmett, Jasper, Edward and Carlisle were all crouched around massive area of bare dirt, where something had been placed pyre-like in the centre of the circle and set alight.

It was still smouldering.

Edward was the first to look up as he heard us approach. He met my eyes. "This was not here two days ago." He said solemnly, and I believed him.

"Why would anyone do something like this?" Carlisle whispered. I wrinkled my nose in revulsion as I looked at what was left of the vampire that had attacked me. The body had been ripped apart and burned, so there were only bare bones left. I could see a set of fangs.

"They're taunting us." Eddie said. There was a dangerous spark in his blue eyes.

"Why?" Seth's face was hard, trying to understand.

"They must think I'm dead." I said quietly. "They've got what they came for, and they're gloating." I knelt down next to the remains, and cocked my head. There was some sort of ash-coated tag dangling between the ribs and I carefully reached into the twisted chest cavity to retrieve it.

"Aw." Seth turned away.

It was a set of dog tags of some kind. I rubbed off the grime with my thumb.

"What's it say?" Emmett asked.

"Subject 5648, advanced anaemia dehydration. Mental instability incurred."

"What does that mean when it's at home?"

"It means he was starved into insanity." Carlisle said soberly.


	6. Dirty Secrets

We all stood frozen around the charred corpse. Carlisle's expression matched my own thoughts

_Someone was experimenting on supernatural creatures._

What did I ever do to deserve this? My fist curled around the sooty dogtags in my hand, and the metal edge bit into my hand. Unconsciously my jaw clenched, my brows lowering. I felt the metal bending in my hand. I would _not _let my daughter become like this poor, pathetic creature. The territorial streak was almost overwhelming.

Eddie's hands were on my shoulders, and I felt his breath on the back of my neck, breathing some warmth into my cold body. "No one's going to get away with this." He hissed. "I'm going to get them if it's the last thing I do."

"It probably will be." Edward cut in harshly. "Whoever is responsible for this is more than a match for a vampire or a werewolf. _You're_ not going to make any difference, besides additional cannon fodder."

"Edward," I spotted Bella, hanging back from the men. She shot her husband a startled look.

Eddie tensed, his hands clenching on my arms. He slowly released me and turned to face the vampire, a muscle in his jaw twitching. His gorgeous blue eyes had darkened to almost black with anger. I knew he was teetering on the edge of revealing himself to all of these creatures. Suddenly my bloodlust took a backseat to another emotion.

_Will they panic and run away, or kill him?_

"You miserable, narcissistic, arrogant son of a bitch." It started in a low pitch, but gradually rose in crescendo. "What the _hell _is your fucking problem? You have absolutely _no right _to look down your nose at me, you premenstrual prick."

The wolf form of Leah Clearwater gave a loud snorting noise that might have been a laugh.

Edward's eyes momentarily widened over the fact that there was actually someone on this earth who had the gall to talk to him like that. "You have _no _idea what you're dealing with, boy. How _dare _you, you-" He trailed off, seemingly grappling with the word that came foremost to his mind. Bella glanced between the two of them, looking shocked.

"Say it." Eddie snarled.

"You _human_." I almost choked at the word. The other vampire hurled it at Eddie like it was the absolute worst insult he could think of. "You cannot even begin to understand what is happening here. You are just another ignorant, insignificant, small-minded member of the masses."

"How _dare _you?" I snapped. For the first time I really wanted to claw his eyes out. Edward sounded like becoming a vampire was one of the best things that ever happened to him, while I would give anything to be human once more.

"Edward," Bella said warningly, her jaw clenching.

"How could you _possibly _hope to comprehend the complexity that is our existence? How could you even-?"

Enough was enough for Eddie.

"Because my parents were murdered by vampires!"

Bella clapped her hands to her mouth in horror. Carlisle's eyes widened in a sudden understanding into this young man's mind. Edward stopped short mid-rant, staring at Eddie like he wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next.

Eddie seemed to calm himself somewhat, and continued in a somewhat more measured tone. "And every day after until I turned eighteen, I spent every day learning how to track them, how to fight them." He didn't give his vampire smile, but I could hear it in his voice. While the werewolves seemed to edge in to hear more, the vampires seemed to take a collective step back. After a moment, he parroted Edward's clipped, archaic tones back at him.

"I really appreciate your apparent complete disregard and contempt for me." He said gravely. "Which gave me more than adequate time to gauge your weaknesses."

Edward stared at him wordlessly, unsure of what to say. For the first time, I was absolutely certain that Eddie would have been able to handle the marble-like, statuesque vampire in a fight.

The spell was broken by Emmett's delighted laugh.

"You can't be serious!" The vampire wiped a nonexistent tear from the corner of his eye. "Oh my God, you had us all going for a while there."

Jasper gave a thin smile. However, Carlisle's expression was dark, almost pained, his brow folded into a deep frown. He disguised it well, but he was worried. I cast a glance at him, carefully probing into his mind. Suddenly my mind was filled with the image of a serious-faced young man standing before me, a crossbow aimed directly my heart.

My eyes widened as I realised that the boy looked like Carlisle.

"Now, whoever these people are, they know what they're doing." Eddie carried on. "And they know you're here. Which means that they're probably prepared for _you _to try and get back Jacob."

Leah and Seth exchanged worried glances. However, they and Carlisle seemed to be the only ones taking Eddie remotely seriously.

Edward gave a snarky smile, getting some of his whiny momentum back. "Vampire hunter? You?" He raised an eyebrow, and took a step forward.

Leah gave a low growl, warning the vampire to stand back, stepping forward to flank myself and Eddie. I glanced behind myself at her, and her dark eyes bored back into me. I had no idea what we had done to gain this sudden ally, but I felt grateful. It was only after spending time in La Push that I realised that I felt safer among the werewolves then I ever felt among the alarmingly perfect and impossibly temperamental Cullens.

But Edward wasn't done yet. "My God," He exclaimed. "You sad, delusional-"

Bella buried her fingers in her dark hair, tugging at the roots, shaking her head. Her expression was impossibly frustrated.

"For God's sake, Edward, _stop talking_!"

Leah and Seth stared at her. The Cullens stared at her. Eddie and I stared at her.

Edward stared at her.

"Bella-" He reached out to her, and Bella snatched her arm back.

"Just stop talking." There was bite in her words that I had never noticed before. I could tell that it hurt telling her Edward off, but part of her recognised that we needed to be focused. She stared at me with unflinching amber eyes, and I saw that Bella Cullen had many layers, whereby with me, what you saw was what you got.

"I'm with you." She said quietly.

"As am I." Carlisle added.

Emmett was looking between all of us, looking slightly stunned. "You don't seriously _believe_ him?" He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Eddie. Carlisle gave Eddie a piercing look, as if he could see right through him.

"I have met hunters before." He said calmly, ignoring the stunned reactions he invoked from the members of his family that he had brought. Leah stared up at the doctor with her big wolf eyes, the expression of suspicion never shifting from her face.

"The blonde boy." I said.

The older vampire gave a slow nod, a sad and faraway look in his eyes. "My nephew."

He gave me a look. "My father was a preacher, and he was almost maniacal in his persecution of what he perceived as demons. Many decades after I was... turned, I discovered that he had taken a young bride before he had died, and they had a son."

"What did you do?" Jasper asked. His face didn't betray his emotions, but I could tell he was curious.

"He had died by the time I discovered that he had existed. From old age or something else, I never knew. The boy drove me out. All I know is that some time in between my leaving, and my coming back, the family had come up against real supernatural evil and triumphed, training their heirs to carry on the battle."

Bella cast a quick look at me, and then back to Carlisle. "So you still... have a human family out there somewhere?"

For a moment, I didn't think Carlisle was going to answer.

"Yes." He said simply.

The dynamics of the Cullen family seemed to change. Suddenly Carlisle, the father of the coven, was no longer responsible merely for their family, but was part of someone else's, too.

"I believe you, son." Carlisle said gravely. "Now, we should get back to work."

We continued on to the Cullen fortress, flanked by the family, Seth and Leah. Suddenly Leah stiffened, her snout thrust into the air, and growled.

"Who is _that_?" Bella pointed.

I saw a streak of red hair, and the Cullens seemed to tense as one.

"Victoria?" Edward hissed in disbelief, his brows knitted in concentration as he attempted to read the newcomer's mind.

"Verity!" I grinned and waved. I shot Eddie a look and he gave a small smile. I knew immediately that he had turned to our supernatural allies in our quest to find Jacob and DB.

The elder of Inez's sisters gracefully alighted down toward us, and after a moment I noticed the hunter John Chesterton following behind, hardly as graceful, and hardly as fast.

"Hey, sexy," John grinned at me. In the months since I had seen him, the older man's temples had greyed. Verity stood beside him silently, a brooding, perfect Venus. For a moment I wondered how she had managed to cover the miles between here and Australia as the other vampire wasn't particularly fond of sunlight.

"Whoa, easy there, buddy. I'm involved."

"What makes you so certain I'm talking to you?" The old hunter cast a speculative look over the Cullen family. Verity's stoic look turned slightly sour.

"What are you doing here, John?" Eddie was surprised.

"Calm down, junior. I thought you might want to take a gander at these." From beneath his battered jacket, John produced a crumpled folder and handed in across to Eddie. I leant over his shoulder to see as he opened the folder. The Cullens around us were so quiet that they could have been dead.

_Well, duh._

Eddie pulled out pages of notes and several photographs. "What am I looking at here, John?"

"That's your Professor Milton." John tapped a grainy photograph of an older man with snowy-white hair and large black eyes.

"How did you manage that?" I asked.

"I have contacts." Verity said calmly. Edward Cullen glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, not exactly pleased with her presence.

"We can handle this." He practically growled at Eddie.

Verity snorted. "If it makes you feel better, keep telling yourself that, youngling."

"Wait. That's the guy." I said suddenly. "That's the guy that shot Jacob."

Bella craned to get a closer look. I was pointing at the image of a man with glasses that was behind Professor Milton. The one that had decided that I could be left to die. Then something weird happened.

Eddie's hand clenched on the file, and his brow folded into a scowl. His blue eyes had darkened and his face had stiffened into a frightening mask. Then he dropped the file.

"Babe? Are you okay?" I squeezed his shoulder.

"That's him. That's the one that did it." He said to me flatly. I quickly bent down to retrieve the file as John and Verity came in closer, closing the Cullens and the La Push wolves out. Eddie didn't need to explain to us what this man had done.

"He's a vamp." John said bluntly. He ran his thumb lovingly over the hilt of the knife under his coat. "A vamp, working with-"

"Scientists." That was the cleanest word I could think of to describe the men.

"Why?" Verity's marble face was even less expressive than it usually was, though I had known her for long enough to know that her mind was going a mile a minute. "Protection?"

"Inside information." Eddie said dryly. "He's telling them where supernatural beings can be found_._" None of us were going to question the underlying bitterness in his tone.

"Because he's a sociopathic freak who gets off on torturing people?" My mind was furiously working to try and make sense of it all.

Eddie looked at me. "My parents weren't killed for blood. He didn't drink. He liked…" He trailed off, searching for words. I reached for his hand, passing the file behind me to Bella and Edward. "He did it for _fun_."

"And _this_ is the next step on the wackjob scale." John murmured.

And then Edward Cullen stumbled back out of our group, one hand at his throat. His piercing amber eyes were wide and horrified and almost frightened as his gaze flitted from the grainy picture back to Eddie's bowed head.

"Man, _what _is your problem?" Emmett snapped, and everyone seemed to turn as one to stare at him.

For the first time since I had come in contact with this good-looking and dangerously obsessive vampire, he looked hopelessly stuck for words. His eyes darted from one face to another, and I frowned in disbelief.

Edward Cullen was panicking.

"Edward?" Bella reached out for him, and suddenly the words came tumbling out.

"I didn't mean – I never meant for –"

"Edward?"

"My boy, what have you done?" Carlisle sighed. I could tell by the crease of his brow that the doctor had his suspicions. I had mine also, and my hand tightened on Eddie's arm before he came to the same conclusion.

"What did you _do_?" Eddie demanded, much harsher than Carlisle had been.

"You must understand," Edward appealed to me with his eyes. "I was young. I was so sure that I could – that I could control it."

"My boy." Carlisle shook his head helplessly. Jasper closed his eyes and bowed his head. Emmett simply stared at his brother, arms by his sides.

"You turned someone." Anger flashed across Emmett's face. "You turned someone during that bout of adolescent angst when you ran away years ago, and you _didn't tell anyone_? Damn it, we could have found him! We could have stopped him before he started hurting people!"

"I thought he was dead!"

"Tell that to my parents!" Eddie shouted. Every muscle in his body was straining to pounce on Edward and tear him apart.

For the first time there was regret on Bella's face. Then her expression hardened. "Enough!" She snapped, and the Cullens and the La Push wolves once again stared at her, not used to her being assertive.

"Now is not the time for this." She said in a small voice. "We can... we need to concentrate on getting Jake and DB home."

"Bella's right." I agreed. Eddie stared at me like I was somehow betraying him, and I met his glare squarely.

"Our daughter is the priority here."

After a long moment, he nodded.


	7. Bugger

We left that night for Port Angeles, me and Eddie with Verity, John, Leah and Seth in John's truck. Behind us in convoy followed the Cullens, the rest of Jacob's pack, and Sam Uley and his pack. A traffic cop had tried to pull us over just before the Port Angeles limit, but as Emmett and Sam pulled in behind John, the man had nervously waved us on.

Verity and John had tracked this Professor Milton to an office building that housed a struggling PR firm at the other end of the city. Apparently it was quite easy to find the man when the two of them knew what they were looking for, and it shocked me to find out exactly how many people knew about this secret underworld and used the supernatural creatures to their advantage. Underground shape-shifter dog-fighting, crass circus sideshow attractions, study...

The truck slowed to a stop. I stepped onto the pavement beside Eddie. Verity and John were behind us, talking quietly to Leah. I heard the wind behind us part, and Bella stepped out into the circle of light given off by the few working streetlamps. Edward had tried to make her stay home with Esme and Renesmee, but the vampire woman had insisted just as strongly that she come with us. Edward himself wasn't far behind her.

I knew Bella blamed herself. If she had never invited us to the Cullen household, none of this would have ever happened.

"The others are watching the perimeter." She said. "There's security on the back door, and a dumpster in the back alley that smells like flesh." Her expression turned introspected. "Both seem extremely odd."

"Alice is keeping an eye on us. If she sees anything she doesn't like, I will know." Edward said solemnly.

There was no one to be seen on the front door, which opened directly onto the front desk where a rather pretty young woman was sitting and typing something so fast that I almost didn't see her fingers move. Eddie frowned thoughtfully, his eyes darting across the front of the building to the alley. He nudged my arm slightly.

"You see that window that the roof there slopes down to?" I frowned, staring at the window in question. Judging by the size, I guessed it must have functioned as ventilation for a bathroom.

"She'll notice," I gestured to the receptionist with a barely perceptible nod of my head. Eddie rubbed his chin thoughtfully and cocked an eyebrow, and the expression strongly reminded me of a Bond villain. His roving blue eyes eventually settled on Edward.

After a moment, Edward Cullen's expression turned slightly perturbed at being held in Eddie's piercing stare.

"Distract her." He instructed Edward, leaving no room for negotiation. Edward's amber eyes grew wide in incomprehension.

"How?"

Eddie grunted at Edward's naiveté.

"Go dazzle her. Or bite her head off. Whatever works for you."

Bella quickly hid a smile behind her hand. Edward's lips thinned as Eddie and I headed toward the warehouse. When I was sure that the receptionist was thoroughly entranced by Edward's dazzling wit, I reached up and snagged a hold on the rusted, slimy railing and lifted myself up gracefully into the air and onto the worn-out fire escape. Eddie followed behind me, nowhere near as gracefully.

The gutter bowed beneath our weight and the roof was slippery from recent rains, which made finding footfalls all the more difficult. I silently thanked God that the moon was behind a cloud and that we weren't lit up against the sky like Batman and Robin as we carefully made our way across the roof to the small window.

"Well, this is fun." I commented as I carefully inched toward the window, sheet iron shifting under my feet. "And I thought you said we didn't spend any quality time together anymore."

I felt more than saw Eddie's grin. "This is not exactly the kind of quality time I had in mind." He replied wryly.

"Pervert."

"Prude."

We were at the window. Eddie began carefully prying around the pane with a knife, when I reached out and yanked the window up. He gave me a look.

"Not cool." He hissed. I merely tapped my wristwatch and slipped inside.

The window led onto the men's bathroom, and I stepped down onto a closed toilet lid before turning to help Eddie slip through the small space. Eddie was the first out of the stall just as the bathroom door opened, and the suited man that entered gave him a knowing look as I emerged, both of us looking appropriately mussed. In reply, Eddie gave a cheeky wink and ushered me out of the bathroom.

"I don't need to be able to read your mind to know what you're thinking, and the answer is no." I hissed. "I am _not_ a quickie-in-the-toilets girl."

He shot me an amused look. "I'll remember that."

"Cart." I snagged his sleeve and pulled him back as a young guy with a mail cart trundled along the hall, delivering mail to the offices along the floor. "What now?"

Eddie shrugged out of his leather jacket and handed it to me before smoothing his black, button-down shirt and running his hands through his damp hair. "Observe," He gave his vampire smile, instantly transforming into a cutthroat young businessman. I frowned furiously.

"You know, you're _really _insufferably smug sometimes."

He shot me back a grin as he casually strode up to the mail boy.

"Hey, you." He snapped at the boy in an authoritative manner, instantly catching the young man's attention.

"Yeah?" The tone was insolent yet the boy straightened up in a respective manner, just in case the newcomer held a position of authority.

"Yeah, hi. I'm kind of new here." Eddie dropped the tone, approaching more like an equal than a superior. "Listen, do you think you can give me a few directions?"

"I suppose, man. Where are you looking for?"

"Files and records." Eddie blurted a random department name and I crossed my fingers, hoping that our cover wasn't about to be blown.

"The archives? Yeah, sure. Um, back down that hall where you were, swing a left and it's the first door on your right."

"Thanks, pal." Eddie slapped him on the shoulder before heading back to me and passing by without a glance. As soon as I heard the mail cart trundle off the other way, I hurried to catch him up. He was already at the archives room, and we slipped inside.

"You want to explain what the hell that was?" I hissed. Eddie gave a small grin and from his sleeve he produced a crumpled envelope with the words _HG Milton, Office 1, Walker Consulting, Port Angeles. _I stuffed the envelope in my pocket as Eddie idly wandered over to the isles of filing cabinets that had been crammed into the small room.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary until I really looked. The nearest set of filing cabinets was ordered by name, Alexander to Guillermo, Henry to Mason, Nathaniel to Taylor, Umberto to Zahira. Eddie pulled open the drawer marked Henry to Mason.

"Hey-" I was suddenly concerned as his face changed into the expression he had when he was putting Edward in his place. He pulled out a handful of files and ripped through them, searching for something with a one-minded determination.

"Sweetie?" I touched his arm and looked over his shoulder.

And was greeted with a picture of Eddie as a boy of eight. There was laughter in the child's eyes, and I knew the photo had been taken before his parents had been killed.

_Edward Antonio Mason (ne Collins) AKA Eddie. DOB 1990 – Ongoing. Parents, deceased. Adoptive parents Carl & Esme Collins. Adoptive siblings Emmett & Alice Collins and Jasper & Rosalie Gale. Current partner Ella Swain, adopted daughter Dorothy Beatrice (AKA DB) Collins._

_POINT OF INTEREST: Capable of psychically detecting demons._

_STATUS: Human._

_POTENTIAL: HIGH. Yet to be Turned._

I brushed past him and delved into the cabinet, rifling through the files. Suddenly my hands froze.

_Ella Stephanie Swain._

I looked at Eddie. He looked at me, and I slowly pulled out my file.

There was a picture of the old me, taken from some crappy CCTV camera outside one of Sydney's more questionable pubs. Me and my friends, arms around each other as we drunkenly stumbled our way out of the establishment. In the photo, I could see a young man in a dark hoodie following us. _Spencer. _The vampire who had changed me.

A bitter taste welled up in my mouth.

_POINT OF INTEREST: Telepathic._

_STATUS: Turned. Yet to be harvested._

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I whispered, but Eddie was already delving back into the cabinets. After a moment he emerged with a thick file marked with only one word: _Volturi._

"This might tell us something." His tone was dubious. If our allies already knew about this place, why hadn't they bothered to shut it down already? Neither of us had pockets big enough for the file, so I rolled it up and jammed it in the back of my jeans.

"Let's get out of here before-" I began.

"Nice of you to join us, Mr Collins. Miss Swain. It makes things so much more… _convenient._"

I turned. Looked down the barrel of the gun that was pointed at me.

"_Shit_."

* * *

Being a vampire is not all it's cracked up to be. I've had bones broken. I've got scars. I've been hunted by shape-shifters, a psychotic one-night stand, vampire hunters, and other vampires. I've been shot at, poisoned, stabbed, and bitten.

And most of those times _weren't_ my fault.

Now here I was, standing here with my guy, and we were about to get blown away by an old man that looked like Santa. Vampires may have super-awesome regenerative powers, but I was pretty sure that a head was fairly essential to function. But don't quote me on that.

"And you wonder why we don't do more family activities." I raised my hands slightly. Milton's expression flickered to me a moment, and that gave Eddie enough time to pull a small knife from his jacket and slip it up his sleeve.

"Security has been alerted. They'll be along shortly." He said this with the air of someone commenting on the weather.

"Why?" Eddie asked.

"Knowledge." Milton shrugged. "Power."

"Or you've just got too much time on your hands." I said. "Dude, you've got to get out of the basement."

Milton laughed. It was a nervous laugh, and I knew that although this man was many things, he wasn't that confident in his own abilities. My dad Chuck called it the Post-Turtle syndrome; a turtle on a post along a country road, he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't know what to do while he's there, and you wonder what dumb bastard would have put him there to begin with.

Eddie had come to the same conclusion. His eyes narrowed.

"Who are you working for?"

Clearly he had struck a chord as Milton levelled the gun straight at Eddie's head. However, that one movement gave me enough time to launch myself over the desk separating us and the other man.

Papers exploded into confetti as I grabbed Milton's arm and seized the gun. The old man cried out in fright and pulled the trigger once more, a bullet tearing through my palm and into the ceiling.

"_Ow!"_ I shrieked, before bringing my elbow up into the man's face and shattering his jaw.

"Time to go!" Eddie shouted, grabbing the unconscious man's gun and pulling me through the door.

"_Sonovabitchmothafucker, _that hurt!" Eddie pulled me along by my jacket.

"I'll kiss it better when I have time." He said brusquely. We sidestepped office staff that had been roused by the noise by slipping behind a door that hid the emergency stairs.

"Well, this is just going _swell_!"

"Can you _stop whinging _for a minute?"

I heard footsteps on the top of the stairs. "Time to go."

"Down."

"Down is good." I was beginning to wish I had the whole vampire-cliché deluxe package. If I could just turn into a bat, I'd be set.

Doors were clanging open as we ran, and the confined space meant that there was no way I was able to accelerate up to my top vampire speeds. I skidded to a stop, Eddie behind me. While I was still mostly cool and collected, he was panting and his cheeks were red from exertion.

"We're stuffed." The ways up and down were both blocked. Eddie snarled and whirled around, slamming his fist against the wall. I pulled a face.

"I don't think that's going to help," I said frostily. He rested his forehead against the wall for a moment before looking up.

His eyes lit up and he pulled the knife from his sleeve, before beginning to slide it under the bolts that held the air vent in place. "Help me!" He demanded.

I strode over and clawed at the vent, searching for purchase. The angry voices were approaching us from both sides, and with a sudden surge of adrenaline I tore the vent from the cement wall. "Come on!" At my urging, Eddie reached up and lifted himself into the wall. Carefully I followed, pulling the vent back into place.

Eddie's shoulders were almost too wide for the vent, and his arms brushed the sides of the enclosed space as he crawled. I raised an eyebrow. "Not your best angle, dear."

He threw me a disgusted look back over his shoulder and I grinned brightly.

Neither of us knew where we were going, so I kept us moving in the direction of running air. However, as we reached yet another junction, I grabbed Eddie's ankle in surprise.

"What is it?" He hissed back at me.

I sniffed the air again, and my stomach burbled like I was going to throw up. "Are you telling me you actually can't smell that?" I demanded. It was like wet dog, but worse. A million times worse, with stale blood and decay and urine thrown in. My noise wrinkled.

It seemed a natural choice to move to move in the direction of the smell. Soon enough Eddie exhaled in disgust as the smells assaulted his senses as well. "Good grief."

Something underneath us snapped, and I immediately froze. "Stop moving." I demanded, as the air vent started bowing and groaning beneath our combined weight. Eddie swore.

The aluminium snapped free of its brackets and tore, sending both of us hurtling down to the chipped cement floor.

And let me tell you, being a vampire doesn't mean that hitting a cement floor with your face doesn't hurt any less. For a moment or two I actually think I must have been stunned, because I opened my eyes and Eddie was shaking my shoulders.

"Five more minutes," I mumbled.

"No sudden movements." Eddie hissed at me. Maybe it was the urgency in his tone or the head-splitting smell of wolf hair, but I was suddenly stone-cold sober. I slowly sat up, gripping Eddie's arm tightly, and looked up over his shoulder tentatively.

Jacob stood in front of us.

Not ruggedly-handsome guy-Jacob, but seven-feet-tall-dangerous-killing-machine wolf-Jacob. And he was looking at us like we were the daily special.

I heard growling behind me and slowly looked up over my shoulder. Another wolf was closing the space behind us. This one was much musclier than Jacob, and was covered in thick grey fur that had been ripped from the skin in places. Great ropes of scar tissue wound around his body, and drool dripped from yellowing fangs. As it padded closer to us, it reared up onto its hind legs so the front paws could be used to slash and kill.

We had fallen into the wolf pit.

A bespeckled vampire stood on the catwalk far above us, his fangs bared in a bloodthirsty grin.

_Now we're stuffed._


End file.
